Men’s Surrey Cross-country championships, Denbies, 7 Jan 2018

A day to reflect

The Surreys are always run in a good, competitively charged atmosphere and are darn difficult to win. Although the Bels have a great history in the event, just a couple of wins in the last half-century is pretty grim stuff, but the last decade has been outstanding. Yes, just the one title, but 9 podiums and some splendid days to savour.

Our results, below, this millennium represent the perfect bell curve – to the point! Check out 2006: 299 points for 7th and same again a dozen years later. And what a ride in the interim. Look at those two forays in to sub-83 point territory – and neither got the gold – what more could we do?! And that all took some real building as just finishing a squad was impossible in five out of six of our first attempts of the 21st C.

Nicky-boy was a hunted man all day; but sometimes it’s good to go to the well and drink real deep. Pic by Sophie Harris

So, what news of the 2018 lads who were missing some heavy-hitters. To the naked eye, aging! But that sneers at the great talent of our M50 and M55 to close us in, and actually the average age of the team was 35, which is just about spot on. We also had three real young’uns, and a dazzling late-30’er.

That of course was Paskar, who boasts two amazing streaks at this one: 9 Surreys in a row, and even better, six top 5’s in a row, quite outstanding, what a club treasure he remains. Paskar wasn’t over enthused with his run – watch out Coulsdon!

Nick Buckle was predicted 8th by the TM, but he did it the hard way. Instead of steadily working through he darted into 7th in the opening salvoes and then spent the next 40 minutes of his life grimly hanging on. He slipped to 9th in the last 400, but a brilliant last-gasp kick took out a fine runner.

Ross can be very proud to be the 3rd best we had to offer on this day, as can Arne close behind, occupying the same scoring berth as last year, but near doubling his total. Hey, he’ll take it considering his recent troubles.

Patrick and Mike were both excellent too; and we were assuaged to have the strength of Alex Mills and Rob Norville acting as sentries.

So, in a very competitive race we’ve been better, but not medalling here adds considerable value to that amazing nine year streak.